


Snuggling With One’s Demons

by ficlicious



Series: The Dragon's Cauldron [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Getting Together, Iron Chef Inspired, Lustration, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining Hanzo Shimada, Tumblr Prompt, restaurant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 10:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14235657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: Sometimes Hanzo wrestles with his demons. Sometimes they just snuggle.—————In which there is a cooking show, a shithead brother and a stupidly hot guest chef.





	Snuggling With One’s Demons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tygermama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tygermama/gifts).



The ridiculously large cowboy was presented to him as a _kaiseki_ expert, and were he were inclined to public hysteria, Hanzo would have broken down into gales of crying laughter at the very notion. He was not prone to such fits, however, so he contented himself with arching an incredulous eyebrow at the dossier on the counter beside him, then turning that eyebrow to his brother. “You cannot be _serious_ ,” he said, in the most scathing tone he was capable of producing.

Genji rolled his eyes and reached past Hanzo to pluck the dossier off the counter with a gesture that shouldn’t have come across as mocking, but definitely was. “You are such an elitist snob,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “Just because someone hasn’t bankrupted himself to get yelled at by those assholes at the school _you_ went to--”

Hanzo felt a migraine beginning to throb, just behind his eyes. He decided to name this one, like all the others he usually suffered, _Genji_. “He has had no formal training or work experience in the field he cares to list on his resume,” he said, testily. “Picking up a cookbook and fumbling around in his home kitchen does not count as--” 

“--doesn’t mean he can’t be an expert,” Genji continued over Hanzo, breezily and undaunted. “He satisfies all the requirements set out in the _Dragon’s Cauldron_ guidelines as an expert chef.”

A sneaking suspicion crept up from the back of Hanzo’s thoughts, and he narrowed his eyes at Genji. His little brother looked entirely too innocent for his liking, showing too many twitches and tells with which he was unavoidably familiar. “If you think you’re going to increase your chances of tumbling this--” His eyes flicked to the name on the dossier and back. “--Jesse McCree into your bed with this stunt…”

Genji blinked, went still, and for a moment, his expression was unguarded surprise, flavoured with a soupçon of chagrin. “That isn’t--” he began, plaintive, then broke off and squeezed the bridge of his nose between a forefinger and thumb. “You know what, aniki, let’s go with that. Yes.” His tone was so dry Hanzo’s own throat ached briefly in sympathy. “I’m trying to fuck the cowboy. Please be a good wingman and humiliate him on national TV so I can later console him with my tongue and dick.”

Part of Hanzo’s brain tried desperately to implode on contact with his brother’s admission, and his migraine abruptly surged to molar-grinding levels of pressure. “I am not a matchmaker,” he growled, “nor is my show--”

“Our show,” Genji cut ruthlessly in.

“ _My show_ a dating service.” He sat and fumed awhile longer, glaring at Genji just to watch him squirm. “I should say no,” he finally replied, with a nasal sigh of aggravation. “I want to say no. Is there a reason why I shouldn’t say no?”

Genji’s eyebrow quirked at him, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a wry smirk. “I won’t know whether or not I need to replace my mattress unless I have an enthusiastic partner to help me check the noise levels of the springs?”

Genji’s cackle at the disgusted face he could not stop himself from making solidified the decision. “Fine,” he said, and turned away to finish preparing the kitchen. “Bring your would-be paramour, but do not delude either yourself or him with the hope that I will go easy on him for your sake.”

“The thought you would do anything but ride him hard never crossed my mind,” Genji murmured, smug and self-satisfied, behind him, and Hanzo’s shoulders tensed in shock as a dreadful feeling of having placed his own head in the tiger’s jaws swept over him. But his brother had disappeared completely when he whirled around, a demand to know _what Genji meant by that_ dying unspoken in his throat. 

**oOoOoOo**

Hanzo thought he’d prepared a broad variety of comments to cover any number of opinions to be formed upon meeting his brother’s cowboy, ranging from barely concealed disdain right up to vague commiseration on his frankly terrible preference for lovers. But staring up into the cowboy’s eyes, so ridiculously warm they practically glowed amber under the brown, Hanzo belatedly realized _he had definitely not prepared for every possible scenario_.

The photo attached to his dossier, which Hanzo had admittedly only cursorially glanced at earlier that morning, did not do the man justice. The camera simply wasn’t capable of capturing the light that danced in the brown of his eyes, turning them almost amber under the fluorescents overhead. Nor did it properly convey the breadth of his shoulders, or the way his flannel shirt had been painted over them. And it definitely had not forewarned him for the perfectly ludicrous way the warmth that radiated from his easy smile and expressive face made Hanzo want to melt into a puddle of inchoate bliss from just standing in its path.

Holy ancestors, he might be in trouble here.

The brilliance in which he was bathed abruptly increased in magnitude as McCree caught sight of him and turned to greet him properly, and the last remaining cool, aloof thought disappeared from his head without a trace, tongue abruptly tying itself into a Gordian knot. 

“Konnichiwa, Shimada-san,” McCree said, voice low and mellifluous and made of pure liquid sex. He executed a bow Hanzo had no doubt would read a perfect sixty degrees on a protractor, had he the capacity to not only find one but remember how it worked, and bestowed another of those bone-melting easy grins on him again. “Thank you for havin’ me on, darlin’. I’m a big fan.”

Hanzo desperately hoped that the high-pitched whimper ringing in his ears was a consequence of his brain having hit and surpassed its boiling point, and not a noise that was actually emerging from his throat.

Somehow, he found the strength to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth and swept a precisely appropriate bow in response. “Konnichiwa, McCree-san,” he replied, and how in the nine hells was his voice so cool and smooth when every last cogent thought ran around screaming with its hair on fire in his rapidly-dissolving brain? “It is entirely my pleasure, I assure you.”

McCree’s smile broadened. “No need to be so formal, darlin’,” he said, grasped the hand Hanzo seemed to have extended completely without realizing at some point in the last few seconds. “Please, call me Jesse.”

“If that’s your desire.” Desperately, he licked his lips, hoping to find some moisture with which to wet them, but the hyperaware sensation of Jesse’s broad, callused, warm hand completely enveloping his prevented him from finding any. “Jesse.”

It was his imagination, no doubt, that interpreted Jesse’s polite and friendly glance as one darker and smouldering, and Hanzo was suddenly, pathetically grateful when his assistant emerged with her usual terrifying efficiency to nudge all parties to their respective places to begin the pre-show rundown. He’d done over a hundred of these shows and could make it through the rundown in a coma, but he’d never appreciated his ability to autopilot through it as much as he did right this moment.

_You agreed to help Genji bed this man,_ the oh-so-helpful voice of castigation in the back of his brain informed him pleasantly. _You should have known better and now look at you. You have only yourself to blame for this._

_Genji will bed him and discard him,_ another, more insidious voice countered. _Surely Jesse deserves better than the desultorially shallow treatment your notorious manwhore brother will no doubt inflict upon him._

He eyed the wall behind the flood lights with longing, wishing he had a moment to spare to step into the shadows behind the pageantry, and smash his head into the brickwork, if only to escape the two-hour-long hell this taping would no doubt be for him. 

But alas, the rundown had finished and Amelie re-emerged to shuffle bodies and ingredients around again to her preference and, as his producer Olivia was fond of saying, the show must go on, even if it killed him to do it.

Maybe even _especially_ if it killed him. The ratings would be through the roof.

**oOoOoOo**

Later, when the taping wrapped and the crew had gone about their post-production business, Hanzo stood alone in his kitchen, up to his elbows in soapy water and up to his eyeballs in a well of despair. 

He had little memory of the show itself, would not be able to answer the simplest question about its content, and was not even sure he himself had put together a competing platter for the panel of expert judges to sample against Jesse’s fare. He was more than a little afraid, truth be told, he’d spent the entire show sitting quietly on a stool with stars in his eyes and drool on his chin, enthralled to the attention-commanding spectacle that was Jesse in the kitchen.

The man was an utter, unapologetic _menace_ , and Hanzo would probably die with the sight of Jesse casually dominating the kitchen like he’d been specifically moulded to fit in it still seared into the back of his fucking eyelids. 

He washed dishes he had no memory of using, rinsing them all carefully before setting them to dry in the custom racks. He put away ingredients he would swear he’d never seen before that moment, wiped down counters he wasn’t at all certain he’d actually touched, and in general did every single bit of busywork Amelie usually told him to leave to the cleaning staff, but if he did not keep himself busy, he was going to start screaming or crying, and neither option seemed appealing at that exact moment.

He had no memory of his own actions, cooking his own dish, utilizing the half of the kitchen reserved for him. He did, however, have plenty of memories of Jesse to haunt him and taunt him. Expertly wielding knives to chop veggies and prepare meat, sleeves rolled up to bare gloriously muscular and tanned forearms, chatting conversationally to Genji, flirting shamelessly with Genji right in front of him. 

Genji, who couldn’t cook worth a damn but charmed the pants off audiences and home viewers, according to Olivia’s focus groups. Genji, unapologetic and free with his affections, confident and charming, assertively seductive and a master of the science of body language. Genji, the _likeable_ Shimada brother.

Genji, with whom Jesse had departed directly after the taping concluded, without so much as a fare-thee-well to acknowledge Hanzo’s presence.

Hanzo sighed despondently, dried his hands and began switching off the lights. It was his lot in life, so he should probably make another attempt at accepting constant disappointment as his due. He suspected he would be no happier if successful, but he’d wager his best set of knives he’d be quite a lot more at peace, and maybe that would be enough.

He turned towards the exit and froze like a deer on a highway as Jesse materialized to fill the frame, one hand lifted with a knuckle extended to knock on the open door. Every scrap of hollow peace and fatalistic serenity Hanzo had fought to attain in the last two hours abruptly fled, and his heart rate tripled in the space of a breath. “Konbanwa,” he blurted, jerked forward like a puppet abruptly yanked by the strings and bowed in startled greeting. “I thought you departed with Genji. I was not expecting to see you again.”

Jesse was silent for a moment, and Hanzo stared in furious panic at the floor, holding the bow a trifle too long just because he needed the extra seconds to compose himself. “My apologies if I’m disturbin’ you, Shimada-san,” he replied, as Hanzo finally straightened, warm but a little confused. “I just wanted to say again how deeply thrilled I am t’have worked in your kitchen, and I’m grateful y’all asked me to be the special guest star for your two-hundredth episode.”

The words were intelligible, and Hanzo even understood what they all meant individually, but however Jesse had put them together made absolutely no sense to Hanzo’s ears. He blinked, wide and surprised, mouth opening and closing several times as he attempted to unravel their mystery. 

As if he hadn’t noticed Hanzo’s utter _bafflement_ , Jesse kept talking. “ _Kaiseki_ ain’t my usual forte, but I took the last three months to really study the art in depth--”

There had been some talk recently about an upcoming special episode, he was almost sure of that.

“--and I really hope I did the dish and its presentation proper justice. Sure, the judges seemed to like it, but--”

There might even have been some talk about trying to book a special celebrity chef guest star for said special episode. He was less certain about that, however.

“--if I could be so brazen to ask for your opinion on it, Shimada-san, I’d be downright thankful for whatever pointers you think I could use were I to make the dish again, maybe even for … a special someone I’d like to impress?”

His attention refocused abruptly on Jesse, searching his stunningly rugged features for _whatever_ he was suddenly certain he was missing about the man. 

Jesse trailed off, clearing his throat awkwardly, met his eyes with a bemused expression of his own. “Is somethin’ wrong, darlin’?”

_“Who are you?”_ he blurted, aggrieved and no doubt looking a little like a madman. A very, very rude madman, he amended a breath later as the words continued to pour out, unhindered by his sudden and fervent wish to have the ground swallow him whole. “You’re capable. You’re clearly trained. You either _must_ or _should_ be a professional. You cannot simply be a potential bedpartner my brother is attempting to seduce, no matter how ridiculously, ludicrously attractive you are!”

Stunned silence met his outburst, and he stared in soul-freezing horror as Jesse blinked in utter shock at him. Just as he mentally began composing his death haiku and casting about for an appropriate weapon with which to end his unbearable existence, Jesse’s face broke into a tiny, but rapidly spreading grin of utter delight. “You have no idea who I am.”

“I believe I have made that abundantly clear,” Hanzo replied primly, and promptly buried his face in his hands.

Jesse’s laugh had no business being that low, smoky or delighted, and he had no business physically swaying towards its source as if it could give him any sort of comfort in this perfect train wreck his day had become. “Hanzo-- Can I call you Hanzo? You never did get around to saying I could or couldn’t.”

“You may,” he mumbled, cursing the floor for staying solid beneath his feet.

Hands gently touched his arms, slid up his skin, pulled his hands away from his face. And Jesse beamed down at him, the warmth and benign amusement washing over him like a balm. “My mama’s name was McCree,” he said, thumbs ghosting circles on his wrists. “And when I’m tryin’ to go as low-key a man my size can get, I use it instead of Papi’s.”

With great, tremulous courage, Hanzo lifted his eyes to meet Jesse’s. “And that is…?”

His eyes crinkled good-naturedly, bright and convincing enough that Hanzo began to think that just maybe this wasn’t the absolute catastrophe he thought it to be. “Reyes, darlin’. My full name’s Jesse McCree Reyes.”

With that, the puzzle that was Jesse McCree abruptly resolved and became crystal clear in his mind’s eye. Hanzo closed his eyes, a tremor shivering across his shoulders, and sighed ruefully. Gabriel Reyes, one of his own inspirations, an exacting, terrifying three star chef who ran the kitchen of Blackwatch as if he were a three star general. Of course Jesse would have no obvious formal training -- his father was a master of the craft, and of course had seen to his son’s education personally. “You must think me a great fool,” he says, calm and resigned.

Jesse’s chuckle warmed him inside and out. “I don’t,” he replied. “I think you’re a delightful soul, and I could stand to spend more time in your company.” A pause, and he grinned wryly. “Truth be told, I was a little worried you were more like Genji than not. I’m fond of him an’ all, but does he have a setting that _isn’t_ ‘locate warm willing body and crawl inside it’?”

He startled himself by laughing, husky and unrestrained, and for the first he could remember in recent months, warmth spread through his chest, tingled along his limbs, lightened his mood until it dizzied him. He thought it might be “hope” or even, dare he wish it, “happiness”.

“Please excuse my rudeness, Jesse,” he said, a great deal warmer than he could ever remember speaking to anyone. “And I would consider it a great favor if you kindly forgot the last seven or eight minutes had ever happened.” He freed a hand from Jesse’s loose hold long enough to hook the edge of his sleeve over the heel of his thumb and dab the tears out of his eyes. “You were asking for advice on a dish you wished to prepare for someone you wanted to impress. Is that correct?”

“Well,” Jesse drawled, and reclaimed his hand after he moved it from his face. “That all depends.”

He could not stop smiling. It felt odd. It felt wonderful. “On?”

Jesse’s grin was sudden and wry, and was that a hint of bashful red in his cheeks? Yes, yes it was. “On if you're interested in me tryin’ to impress you, darlin,” he replied, and gently stepped out of the door frame, and gently shut it behind him.


End file.
